Chương 5 - The Engagement Ends Before the Wedding Begins

Vanessa did not run when she saw Anthony DeLuca.

That would have been easier for everyone.

Instead, she removed her gloves one finger at a time, placed them on the library table, and looked at Luca as though the appearance of a man believed dead for eleven years were simply another unpleasant detail of wedding planning.

“Where did you find him?” she asked.

Anthony gave a quiet laugh.

“I found him.”

Vanessa’s eyes flicked toward him.

“You should have stayed hidden.”

Luca stepped between them.

“No.”

The single word stopped the room.

“You don’t get to decide who should have stayed hidden.”

Vanessa looked at Hannah then, and the composure around her mouth tightened.

“This is because of her.”

Hannah felt the accusation land, but Luca answered first.

“This is because you hired a man under a false identity, brought him into my home, removed property from my study, watched him injure an employee, and lied about it in front of twenty-six people.”

Vanessa’s face lost some color.

“I did not tell him to hurt her.”

“No,” Hannah said. “You told me to stop interfering while he was doing it.”

Vanessa’s gaze snapped to her.

For almost a year Hannah had lowered her eyes when Vanessa entered a room. She had swallowed comments, changed schedules without complaint, and accepted the quiet hierarchy of the estate because challenging it would have cost more than she could afford.

Now her wrist was braced because silence had become expensive too.

She held Vanessa’s gaze.

Luca noticed.

So did everyone else.

Daniel entered the library with a tablet in his hand.

“The archive cabinet was opened Tuesday at 6:14 p.m.”

Vanessa did not move.

“Who?” Luca asked.

Daniel turned the screen toward him.

“The library camera shows Miss Bellini.”

Luca looked at Vanessa.

“Tuesday.”

She remained silent.

“That was two days before Wallace took the watch.”

“I know what day Tuesday was.”

“Did you remove the Marigold authorization?”

Vanessa’s jaw tightened.

Luca waited.

Finally she said, “Yes.”

Anthony shifted beside the bookshelves.

Hannah almost expected Luca to explode.

He did not.

That made the moment worse.

“Where is the key?” he asked.

Vanessa looked toward the windows.

“Safe.”

“Where?”

“With me.”

“Give it to me.”

“No.”

Daniel straightened.

Anthony looked almost impressed.

Luca’s expression became unreadable.

“Vanessa.”

“You want a simple answer because you think this is simple.”

She took one step toward him.

“My father wanted this marriage long before you proposed. Did you know that?”

“No.”

“He wanted access. Contracts. Shared ventures. Your company’s reputation attached to ours.”

Luca’s voice remained flat. “Anthony told me.”

For the first time, Vanessa looked wounded rather than defensive.

“So he told you his version.”

“He told me enough to ask you for yours.”

Vanessa looked at Anthony.

“My father frightened you into disappearing. Fine. I believe that.”

Anthony’s face hardened.

“You believe it because you grew up with him.”

“I grew up surviving him.”

The sentence silenced even Daniel.

Vanessa’s eyes returned to Luca.

“When Anthony contacted me, I thought he was trying to ruin the marriage. Then he told me your father had hidden proof that mine had stolen from Moretti companies.”

“So you hired Wallace.”

“Yes.”

“To find Anthony.”

“Yes.”

“To steal the watch.”

“No.”

Luca’s gaze sharpened.

Vanessa continued before he could interrupt.

“I hired Wallace to learn whether Anthony was telling the truth. When he found him, Anthony refused to show me anything. He said the evidence belonged to you.”

“As it did.”

“I knew if I told you before I had proof, you would confront my father.”

“You don’t know what I would have done.”

Vanessa laughed once without humor.

“I know exactly what men like you do when fathers are murdered.”

Hannah saw something pass across Luca’s face.

Not anger.

Recognition.

Vanessa had known the man she was supposed to marry well enough to understand what his reputation promised.

“Why the watch?” he asked.

“Anthony said Enzo hid the key where family could reach it. My father once told me Enzo never removed that watch, even in the hospital. I guessed.”

“And the authorization?”

“I searched the estate records until I found Marigold Holdings.”

“You could have come to me at any point.”

“I needed to know what was in the box first.”

“Why?”

Her answer took too long.

Hannah saw Luca notice.

Vanessa looked away.

“Because if my father killed yours, I needed something he feared more than he feared losing me.”

Anthony’s voice was quiet.

“Leverage.”

“Yes.”

“You wanted to blackmail him.”

“I wanted him out of my life.”

Luca’s face changed slightly.

“And you planned to marry me without telling me any of this.”

Vanessa looked at him.

“I planned to marry you after making sure my father could never use me against you.”

“That is not better.”

“No,” she said. “It probably isn’t.”

The honesty surprised Hannah.

Luca held out his hand.

“The key.”

Vanessa did not move.

“Give it to me.”

“I can’t.”

“Why?”

“Because I already used it.”

The room went completely still.

Daniel spoke first.

“You accessed the box?”

“This morning.”

“With a stolen authorization.”

“With an authorization signed by Enzo Moretti.”

“It did not authorize you,” Luca said.

“It authorized the bearer of the key under the trust’s old instructions. The bank clerk accepted it.”

Anthony closed his eyes.

Luca’s voice lowered.

“What was inside?”

Vanessa swallowed.

“Three ledgers. A packet of account copies. A letter from your father. And a cassette tape.”

Hannah felt the list settle into the room.

“Where are they?” Luca asked.

Vanessa looked at him.

“I’m not telling you.”

Daniel moved one step forward.

Luca lifted a hand.

Daniel stopped.

Vanessa saw the gesture.

“You can search me. Search my car. Tear apart my apartment. They aren’t there.”

“Did you give them to your father?” Anthony asked.

Her eyes flashed.

“No.”

“Then who?”

“No one.”

Luca studied her.

“You expect me to trust that?”

“No. I expect you to understand that the only reason my father has not acted against everyone in this room is because he does not know where those records are either.”

That sounded plausible.

Which made it more dangerous, not less.

Luca lowered his hand.

“The wedding is canceled.”

Vanessa’s face went blank.

Hannah felt the words move through the room like pressure changing before a storm.

“You don’t mean that,” Vanessa said.

“I do.”

“Luca—”

“You used my house, my father’s property, and one of my employees to build leverage for a private war with your father.”

“I was trying to protect us.”

“You protected your plan.”

He looked toward Daniel.

“Before she leaves, preserve every access log connected to the library, my study, the service entrance, and the security office. No one deletes a message, overwrites footage, clears a device, or throws away wedding paperwork because the wedding is off.”

Daniel nodded.

Luca continued, “Tell Mrs. Carter every employee who had contact with Wallace or Vanessa may speak to counsel privately. No supervisor sits in. No one loses hours for cooperating, and no one is questioned about what they say afterward.”

Hannah looked at him.

The order was not dramatic. It did not recover the missing evidence or answer who had killed Enzo. But it changed the house in a way threats never could. Speaking would no longer require a servant to gamble a paycheck first.

“Vanessa leaves with her personal belongings. Nothing from the estate that isn’t clearly hers.”

Vanessa’s eyes filled, but she refused to let the tears fall.

“You think sending me away solves this?”

“No.”

“My father will know something happened the moment I return home.”

“I’m counting on it.”

That answer frightened Hannah.

Vanessa picked up her gloves.

At the door, she stopped beside Hannah.

For a moment, Hannah expected another threat.

Instead Vanessa looked at the brace.

“I should have stopped him.”

Hannah did not answer.

Vanessa’s voice dropped.

“I didn’t think he would grab you that hard.”

“That isn’t the part you should be sorry for.”

Vanessa looked at her.

Hannah continued.

“You thought you could decide what happened to me because you needed something more important.”

Vanessa’s face tightened.

Then she left.

Daniel followed.

The room felt larger after the door closed.

Anthony sat down heavily.

“She has the evidence.”

Luca stared at the empty doorway.

“For now.”

Hannah looked at him.

“What happens when her father realizes the wedding is canceled?”

Luca’s eyes moved to his father’s watch.

“He decides whether he is more afraid of what Vanessa knows or what I’m about to learn.”

His phone rang before anyone could say more.

Daniel.

Luca answered.

A pause.

Then his expression hardened.

“What do you mean, the bank called?”

He listened.

“When?”

Another pause.

“Keep the records. I want copies of everything they can legally give us.”

He ended the call.

Anthony leaned forward.

“What?”

Luca looked at him.

“Someone tried to access Box 417 again fifteen minutes ago.”

Vanessa had been standing in the library at the time.

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Which meant someone else knew about the box.

And whoever it was had arrived after she emptied it.